mixing. But such flour is easily spoiled by
dampness, it does not make as good biscuits or flapjacks as one can turn
out in camp by doing his own mixing, and it will not do for thickening,
dredging, etc.

"Flour and meal should be sifted before starting on an expedition. There
will be no sieve in camp."

"_Baking Powder_--Get the best available powder, put up in air and
damp-eight tins, so that your material will be in good condition when
you come to use it in camp. Baking soda will not be needed on short
trips, but is required for longer ones, in making sour-dough, as a
steady diet of baking-powder bread or biscuit will ruin the stomach if
persisted in for a considerable time. Soda also is useful medicinally.

"_Cornmeal_--Some like yellow, some prefer white. The flavor of freshly
ground meal is best, but the ordinary granulated meal of commerce keeps
better, because it has been kiln-dried. Cornmeal should not be used as
the leading breadstuff, for reasons already given, but johnnycake, corn
pancakes, and mush are a welcome change from hot wheat bread or biscuit,
and the average novice at cooking may succeed better with them. The meal
is useful to roll fish in before frying.

"_Breakfast Cereals_--These according to taste, and for variety's sake.
Plain cereals, particularly oatmeal, require a long cooking, either in a
double boiler or with constant stirring, to make them digestible; and
then there is a messy pot to clean up. They do more harm than good to
campers who hurry their cooking. So it is best to buy the partially
cooked cereals that take only a few minutes to prepare. Otherwise the
'patent breakfast foods' have no more nutritive quality than plain
grain; some of them not so much. The notion that bran has remarkable
food value is a delusion; it actually makes the protein of the grain
less digestible. As for mineral matter, 'to build up bone and teeth and
brawn,' there is enough of it in almost any mixed diet, without
swallowing a lot of crude fiber.

"Rice, although not very appetizing by itself, combines so well in stew
or the like, and goes so well in pudding, that it deserves a place in
the commissariat.

"_Macaroni_--The various pastes (pas-tay, as the Italians call them)
take the place of bread, may be cooked in many ways to lend variety, and
are especially good in soups which otherwise would have little
nourishing power. Spaghetti, vermicelli, and noodles all are good in
their way. Break macaroni